Connection
by Imitating Eve
Summary: Ikarishipping Day One shot. Dawn and Paul have been dating for a long time. And the period came, when they are becoming apart from each other. How will they be able to get it over and become the happy couple they were again?


Connection

**Happy Ikarishipping Day everyone! This is a fic I wrote a month ago and I decided to upload it for Ikarishipping Day!**

**Ikarishipping Forever!**

The two glared at each other through the silence. Dawn was holding back her tears and Paul was frowning even harder. Finally Paul sighed, ran his fingers through his hair and stood up. Dawn bit her lips as she shot a look at Paul who walked straight out of the room.

"I wasn't done talking!" Dawn said as she shot up from her seat and followed him outside.

"Stop following me!" Paul yelled and slammed the front door behind him. Dawn bit her lips hard. She tasted something metal, blood. She immediately released her lips and turned her heels toward her room. She stomped all the way there, not minding the poor person who lives downstairs of her apartment and slammed the door close.

She leaned against the door and felt her body sliding down, as her body finally touched the carpet she buried her head into her knees and cried. They had been dating for about 3 years now. It's a miracle how they, so different from each other yet they had never been apart from each other.

But starting from about 4 months before they had been fighting every day. They just fought without any clear reason. They forgot why they fought by the time they stopped fighting and they never ended it clearly. Dawn looked up while sobbing and stood up.

"I need to get some air…" She told herself as she got readied and exited the apartment. The sun was blazing hot. Usually in a romance fic when two main characters were having a fight it would rain or snow.

"After all, this is real live world." She muttered under her breath as she did a little stretch and walked down the street. She wiped the sweat running down her forehead and sighed.

"Maybe I should have stayed inside where it was cool." She complained to herself and sat down on the bench. She looked around and realized she was in a park. It was the park where she and Paul used to visit often. But ever since then they never came. They never went out together to do anything. Just by thinking of this made Dawn want to cry more.

She looked up to hold back her tears.

"Don't cry Dawn. Don't cry…" she said but she could hear her voice very teary. She closed her eyes and a single droplet crawled down her cheek. She opened her eyes and quickly wiped it off. She heard laughter of the happy around her. She felt jealous of them. She was sitting there, all sad and depressed and people were enjoying themselves around her. She felt horrible.

'I need to cheer myself up.' She thought, she stood up and the young adult headed to the nearby ice cream shop and got herself a cone with two scoops of ice cream. One was strawberry and the other was vanilla. She licked the cone and forced herself to smile.

'Pretend to be happy, like one of them.' she said and holding back her tears, she ate the ice cream. But she stopped when she was about half way done eating it, tears were trying to come out and she was trying her best to suppress it and let ice cream flow instead of her tears.

"Shit." She cursed and threw the ice cream cone into the trash can. She decided to go back home and then heard her phone ring.

"Hello?" she picked up after clearing her throat. But it didn't hide her tear voice.

"Dawn, are you okay?" May's high pitched voice said across the phone line.

"No…" Dawn told her best friend.

There was a short silence until May spoke up again, "We saw Paul fuming. He came to our apartment and started to just you know, being angry Paul." May said.

"Is he still there?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah, Drew's doing his best to hold him down. Or else he will break a cup or two like last time." May said with sarcastic voice.

"Do you want to come over?" Dawn asked with hopeful voice. She needed someone who can listen to her.

"Sorry but holding Paul down takes two people. You know what I mean, right?" May asked and Dawn sighed.

"Yes, I know." Dawn's voice must've worried May because she asked once more if Dawn was really okay.

"No need to worry. I'm fine."

"Okay then. I will send Paul later on." With that Dawn ended the phone call and she walked home silently.

By the time she reached home the sun was slowly setting. She opened the windows to let cool wind blow in. She needed to cool down the house. It was really boiling inside.

"Now what should I make for dinner….?" She said as she opened the fridge and realized she forgot to shop. She sighed in frustration and took out the cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes and eggs.

"Another salad." She said as she started to boil the water to make boiled eggs.

She ate, and she waited until Paul comes back. But even after waiting for 30 minutes he didn't return. He wasn't this late. She looked out the window and it was pretty dark. She got worried but she didn't call. After all they fought and was not over with it. She just washed the bowl she had the salad and cleaned the table.

When she was about to enter the bathroom to take shower she heard the door open. She quickly entered the bathroom and locked the door. She didn't know why she 'ran away' from Paul. Her body just reacted this way. Maybe she wanted to avoid pointless argument.

"I'm home." She heard low mutter from outside the bathroom. She said she was in bathroom and took the shower. She did it slowly, she wanted to see him and hug him tightly but at the same time she wanted to hide from him. Hiding from him will stop the fight. But she couldn't take shower forever it will ruin her smooth skin and she didn't want that to happen.

She wiped the droplets running down her body and got into her pajamas then walked out of the bathroom. Paul was sitting on the table while drinking a cup of earl grey.

"Did you have dinner?" Dawn asked. Paul slowly nodded as he sipped the drink.

Dawn noticed a shopping bag sitting on the chair across Paul.

"What's that?" She asked.

"Something." Paul replied. She walked toward it but stopped when Paul shot her a glare.

"I can't even see it?" She asked.

"No."

"I'm your girlfriend, I want to see it."

"You can't."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to."

There it goes again. The two started to blabber the pointless arguments. Dawn ended up in tears and rushing to their bedroom and Paul had to sleep on the couch. Again.

Dawn climbed on to the bed after locking the door. She sobbed into the pillow. "Why is this happening to me?" She asked herself through the tears. She was too into her sobbing that she didn't realize that the door opened. When she realized Paul was in the room was when he placed a hand on her body. She shrieked while sitting up straight and frowned.

"How did you get-" She stopped when Paul showed the key ring.

"Oh."

"I was thinking."

"Thinking of what?" Dawn looked straight at him but he avoided her gaze.

"Us." He said as he looked down into her eyes. His eyes were sad. It was Dawn's first time to see such eyes from Paul.

Her instincts told her this wasn't good. 'No no no no!' She didn't want to end it this way. She grabbed Paul's sleeve with shaking hands. He noticed this and grabbed her hands. She looked up. She told herself to be strong but it won't work. She wanted to be strong but she just couldn't help it. Paul raised his hand to wipe the tears from her cheek but it was coming out endlessly. Paul didn't ask if something was wrong. He didn't ask if she was okay. He didn't command her to stop crying. This was the last thing he could do for her.

"I don't want to end it this way." Dawn said through her tears. Her blue eyes seemed bigger than usual. She buried her head into his chest and he touched her hair gently.

"We can't keep it like this. We are fighting everyday, and we don't even apologize to each other. Dawn, we have to-"

Dawn stopped him with a kiss. She kissed him roughly and he, surprised but regained his coolness, kissed her back. They didn't break apart from each other for a long time until Dawn buried her head again into his chest and cried more. Paul hugged her tightly.

…

Dawn looked out the window. Two months. It had been two months since Paul and Dawn took a 'break'. She missed him. And at the same time she was happy because she was doing things she couldn't do when Paul was around. She invited bunch of her friends and threw a huge slumber party. And she also watched romance comedy movies that Paul would never watch it with her.

She yawned when she was done with her movie marathon. She blinked and looked up at the ceiling. She sighed and picked her phone up. Zero calls, zero messages, zero everything. She went through her friends' numbers and stopped at Paul's number. She wanted to call him and ask. Ask if he was doing fine, ask if he's healthy, ask if his training is going well. She grasped her phone tight and held back the tears.

'Don't cry. This is only a break. To refresh ourselves. He will come back. He surely will come back….' Dawn couldn't hold it back anymore. It had reached its climax. Dawn let the tears flow and she cried out loudly. She cried like it was end of her life. After about 10 minutes of that her hands and face were wet and her eyes were red but she felt like she had emptied out a small stone in her chest. She felt better than 10 minutes ago. She wiped the tears out of her sight and stood up from the floor. She walked to the kitchen to grab something to eat.

That was when her phone started to vibrate. She picked it up, "Hello?"

"Hi Dawn? How's it going?" Reggie's happy voice said through the phone.

"Hi Reggie. Is Piplup doing alright?" Dawn asked.

"He's doing fine. How about you? Answer my question."

"I'm doing fine, honest." Dawn said with a small laughter. It was quiet surprising how her voice wasn't shaking or teary after all those crying.

"Are you sure?" Reggie asked.

Dawn pursed her lips and smiled to herself, "Yes. I'm sure."

"Well then. Paul's doing fine, just in case you are wondering. He's going to challenge Cynthia soon.

"Oh really? That sounds nice. Hope he can finally beat her." She said. She bit her lips, she hope Reggie won't mention anything about Paul but as always, he let her hopes down.

"Yeah I hope so too. But he is strong enough to be one of the Elite Four now. I heard that old Bertha's retiring soon, he is looking for a chance." Reggie explained and Dawn listened.

"So are you going to pick your Pokemons up soon, Ms. Top Coordinator?" Reggie asked.

"Please don't call me that, you know that was three years ago."

"Three years ago you won two Grand Festivals. Dawn, what are you doing? You are the Top Coordinator, you are now even more famous than your mom. Please think straight. I know Paul means very important to you but he's not the whole of your life." Reggie said. She smiled, Reggie was like an older brother to her. Along with Brock, they cared about her.

"Thank you for the concern but right now I want to take some rest. I want to do things I haven't done in a long time."

"Dawn…"

"I will pick Piplup up tomorrow, bye." Without even waiting for the answer she ended the call and sighed.

"Paul's not the whole of my life…?" She wondered to herself. She closed her eyes and memory flowed into her head. The first time they met in Professor Rowan's lab, when Paul couldn't remember her name she screamed at him. And the time when Paul first opened up to her. She remembered. She remembered every single bit of their memory. And they were so important, so sacred to her. She would never want to lose them. She would never want to make them pointless. She knew that Paul was important to her.

She heard a music from her neighbor's window.

"_They say it's connection._

_It can't be avoided._

_In my life such a beautiful day_

_Would it ever come again?_

_On the road of tired life_

_You are a gift to me_

_I will never let this love get rusty_

_I will wipe it everyday." (Connection-Lee Sun Hee)_

Dawn felt something struck her. Those lyrics…. It was so…. So her. She grabbed her phone and ran straight out the door.

'He's my gift. Gift from God, he's the one I'm connected with. He's the one I love. And nothing can stop me.' She thought as she ran down the street and to the park, where Paul usually trained.

She grabbed her knees and panted hard when she finally reached the entrance of the park. She looked around and saw the familiar purple hair among the crowd. She pushed her way through to see Paul in the middle of the battle with Cynthia. She stopped herself to watch them. From the look of it both of the Pokemons looked very tired.

"Torterra, Frenzy Plant!" the turtle's body glowed green as he slammed the ground with his feet and giant roots shot out and aimed toward the opponent.

"Garchomp, dodge!" Cynthia commanded. The dragon type Pokemon jumped high in the air, out of the roots' reach.

"Torterra, use Hyper Beam!" Torterra, toward the Garchomp in the air, quickly fired an orange beam and it struck the dragon's body.

The dragon fell down to the ground.

"Garchomp, quickly, use Dragon Claw!" Cynthia commanded but Garchomp, weakened, couldn't get up and collapsed.

"Garchomp is unable to battle! Torterra wins! So the winner is Paul of Veilstone City!" the referee cried out and as soon as he finished the sentence the crowd roared in excitement. They ran toward awe-struck Paul to get his signature, take pictures with him, and etc.

Dawn stayed there, watched him being the super star of Sinnoh. She just stared and watched.

"Aren't you Dawn?" She turned to see Cynthia.

"Oh, hello." She said.

"It looks like your boyfriend finally managed to beat me and become the new Champion." Cynthia said and Dawn silently nodded.

"Why aren't you congratulating him?"

"Aren't you sad that you lost your title?"

"Former-champion doesn't sound so bad. And I half-expected Paul to beat me this time. He looked different."

Cynthia looked down at the shorter girl, "Did something happened to him?"

"No. Nothing happened." Dawn, still wondering when she will be able to congratulate her love, answered.

"Something was different in his eyes. More determined to win. 6 months, I wonder what changed him."

Dawn blinked, half a year. The same amount of time since Paul and Dawn started to fight. Paul was down, and she did nothing to cheer him up. She treated him just the same.

Dawn looked down in guilt.

"Oh, I need to get going. Better tell the world about our new champion." Cynthia smiled and left. Dawn waited until crowd disappeared and when they were she gathered up her courage to step up to him. He looked tired, from talking to so many people at once, that was something that he is not used to.

He looked shocked when he spotted her.

"Hi." She said.

"Hey."

There were awkward silence between them until Dawn stepped up and grabbed Paul's hands.

"You finally won."

"I guess I did."

"Congratulations. You deserve that place."

"I need to keep it with me."

"You are strong, of course you will keep the title." She smiled and was surprised when he hugged her.

"How are you doing?" He asked.

"Fine." She answered, hugging back the man.

They kissed lightly and smiled at each other. True genuine smile from Paul, she missed it.

"How did you know where I was?" Paul asked.

"We are connected." Dawn answered with gentle smile. Paul looked confused then realized what she was saying and nodded.

"We are connected."

"And we are inseparable." Dawn said and Paul closed the gap between them.

**I wanted to write a fic about a couple when they are becoming tired of each other. I didn't do a good job of describing it but anyway, Happy Ikarishipping Day!**


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